Weight of Feelings

I am here again. This time, writing in English. I know some friends of mine have waited for a blog article written in English by me. Actually, only one friend truly waited — and pushed me, more than once. Contrary to what many might think, I am not surrounded by eager voices.
I am simply a person and sometimes forgotten.

This is my first attempt to write a literary text in English. For years, I never dared. But it is not courage that has brought me here today, to begin writing in a language other than my mother tongue. Rather, it is the weight of feelings that demands to be set down—even if not in my native tongue.

We are all human beings. They say that to err is human. Yet when you do something wrong, say something unethical, share a thought that doesn’t fit the “normal”, imagine what is deemed unacceptable, or write words that unsettle others—why do people so quickly turn their backs? Why is it always so hard to express what you truly feel? Why do I carry so much within me, saying nothing, even to those closest to me?

I am simply exhausted—by my own feelings, my dreams, my desires, my passions, and by the tears that have fallen in streets, on buses, in toilets, and in places meant to hide them. Weeping while unloading the dishwasher, feeling lost while cooking, dreaming while ironing. 

Once, I listened to that song every single day and even sang along: This is a weeping song, but I won’t be weeping long. I keep weeping. Once, I felt utterly lost, with no sign to help me find my way through life. I keep searching. Once, I dreamed constantly of my academic journey, my life abroad, my career, my future home, the years after graduation, the days when I would finally earn my own money, and of that moment, that day, when I would draw closer to the one I desire. I keep dreaming.

A prominent Turkish author once wrote, “People were hurtful, so I escaped into books.” First, I escaped into books. Then into academia. Later into drawing. Then came life abroad. Now, it is time to write, but to escape from the past and the people with whom I share my days.

I am so weak before people—so diffident, so ashamed.

Ashamed because I cannot speak properly.

Ashamed because I have so much to hide.

Ashamed simply for existing.

I want to be invisible—to erase my presence from this earth, to exist only within sentences, and to dwell in the past, that foreign country known to historians.

Then death comes. This time, it takes a 29-year-old woman—so young, so beautiful. All her troubles, feelings, burdens, wishes, and dreams dissolve into nothingness. Her official identity fades within days, her presence within months, her memories within years, and her words within decades. In the end, everything is as it should be.

Only one desire remains: to lose myself in one’s arms—

the one I think of every second,

the one who heals my soul,

the one whose affection I beg for,

the one with whom I share so much,

And still, the one who breaks my heart, yet I forgive each time.

Because the one who owns me is yet blind to see.